Perseverance
Based on Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America
Performances April 15 and 16, 2023 at New Hazlett Theater Center for Performing Arts
Streaming April 24-May 7, 2023
The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh is proud to partner with Prime Stage Theatre for our third year of producing original plays in honor of Genocide Awareness Month. The world premiere of Perseverance brings to the stage a powerful memoir of healing and renewal.
Few visitors to the G&S Jewelry Store in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood during the 1960s and ’70s were aware that the cheerful proprietor, Melvin Goldman, had spent his teens enduring the horrors of Auschwitz before arriving as a penniless refugee in postwar Pittsburgh intent on reshaping his family’s destiny.
Adapted for the stage by L.E. McCullough from the book by Melvin Goldman and Lee Goldman Kikel, Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America, this play depicts Goldman’s irrepressible spirituality, unflagging love for humanity, and perseverance as he worked to replace Darkness with Light, one shop patron at a time.